The Investigation
by DewdropTear
Summary: When Gabe finds out he's the main suspect for the murder of his brother, PJ, him and Jo investigate who the real murderer was.
1. The Truth

_**G**__abe __**D**__uncan_

Everything seems to be going wrong for me. I was kicked out of my house, and only let back in after I begged for an hour. My sisters hate me, and PJ 'left' because of me. My family doesn't care for me anymore. I had no where to go and no one to talk to, so I used to sit alone on my front porch, even in the rain. I asked my best friend, Jo, what I should do, and she told me to leave her alone and that we weren't friends anymore. I didn't understand what she had against me, and I never found out. I asked my parents what I'd done, but they said they couldn't tell me. I asked my sister, Teddy, but she hadn't found out since our parents wouldn't tell her either. I thought about asking Charlie, but she's only two years old, so she wouldn't know. I then thought about calling PJ and asking him, but then I remembered that no one knew where he was. So now I'm all alone and I don't know what to do or what to think of myself.

As Jo passed me in school I smiled at her but she just scowled back. I sighed. I had no friends anymore. I was thinking about all the times we had together when she hurt me and beat me up. I missed those times - anything was better than having no friends. While I was thinking, Jo came and sat down next to me. I looked up and her and gave her a questioning look, but she wasn't looking at me, she was focusing on her lunch. "Jo?" I asked desperately. I wanted someone to talk to.

"Yes, Stupid?" she asked. "I'm not meant to be talking to you," she said seriously. My smile dropped. "But I will anyway." We both grinned.

"Let me just ask one thing - what exactly did I do?" I asked, hoping she could give me an answer. She just shook her head then took a small bite out of her apple. "Please tell me, Jo! I don't understand!" I pleaded. I could see tears forming in her eyes, but I couldn't tell whether it was for me or about what I did.

"Gabe," she started, wiping the forming tears away, "you know the recent murder?" I shook my head. "There was a murder outside your house last Sunday," she explained. I was shocked, I'd never heard any of this before. "It was of PJ Duncan." My jaw dropped.

"PJ was murdered?" She nodded. "Then why is everyone telling me he left?"

She was starting to properly cry now. "They think you were the murderer!" she whispered. I felt like crying, but stayed strong. Jo fell against me and I put my arms round her to comfort her. "I tried to explain it couldn't be you because you were over at my house, but they didn't believe me. They found your DNA on his body, and on the knife that was used to kill him." I was in shock. I knew that everyone hated me for this, but it was worse because I didn't do it!

"How could it have been me?" I asked. Jo sat up. "My DNA is on him because we were wrestling over a video game that day, and my DNA is on the knife because my mum forced me to cut the sandwiches in half for lunch!" I explained. Jo nodded, I knew she was the only one who believed me. "And everyone knows I was at your house - my mum, my dad, your mum, your dad, Teddy."

"That doesn't matter," she said. I raised an eyebrow. "Because it happened outside your house, and no one saw, they think it was you." I was on the verge of tears, but I didn't want to cry, especially not in front of Jo.

"We're going to find out who really did this," I announced. Jo looked surprised.

"We can't," she said.

"We can do whatever we want!" I retorted. The bell rang at that moment, so I got up and headed for my next class, leaving Jo to quickly finish her lunch.


	2. Diary

Gabe shook his head. "Nope," he said. Jo threw the papers she was holding out of the window. She'd had enough of the unanswered questions that they desperately needed answered. They had no idea how to find out who PJ was murdered by. He didn't have any enemies that they knew of, and if he did the knowledge was lost since PJ was now dead. Gabe was annoyed, too. It isn't easy to find out who murdered your brother if you have no clues but to yourself. It was even harder, though, for two twelve year olds with no knowledge of any sort of investigation. Gabe sighed. "This is pointless."

"We can try," Jo said, shifting closer to her friend. Gabe was having a rough time - he had to deal with the death of his brother, the person he was closest to in his family, and he had to deal with all the questions the police threw at him and it was hard on him. Jo knew how hard this was on Gabe, and she was the only one who didn't show hatred to him. Gabe had tried to talk to Teddy, but she had told him that she didn't want to get in trouble with their mum. Gabe didn't talk to Charlie, she was only two years old so she couldn't help him. Gabe didn't bother with his parents knowing that they would just ignore him. "Come on, Gabe, let's go." Jo stood up and opened the door for him. Sighing, Gabe stood up and walked over to Jo's side before following her out of the door.

Gabe couldn't stay at his own house during the day, so he spent all of his time at Jo's house. He was only allowed back into his house to sleep, then had to be out of the house by eight in the morning. It wasn't the most suitable thing in the world, but that was the best he could get. Jo and Gabe headed to the park. Gabe really didn't want to go, but it was the only way to get his mind off PJ. Gabe used to enjoy going to the park, but now everyone knew about the murder and everyone stayed away from him. Jo's parents wouldn't even let Gabe in at first, but then Jo explained that it couldn't have been Gabe so they finally gave in.

Jo and Gabe each sat on a swing at the park. No one else was there, so they didn't have to wait to use the swings like they used to. Jo had taken a bag with her, but left it at the swing next to Gabe. "Drink?" she asked, pointing to her bag. Gabe leant down and took two cans of lemonade out of Jo's bag. He downed his in just over twenty seconds then threw the can into the bin in one shot. "Nice," Jo laughed. She threw her own can but it hit the side of the bin and rolled back towards her. She picked it up and tried again. She couldn't manage to get it in so eventually gave up and put it in the bin normally. Gabe laughed, but Jo didn't find it so funny. "Not funny," she yelled, but couldn't help but laugh herself.

After they finally managed to stop laughing Jo got up off the swing then said, "Going to the toilet." Gabe watched her walk away, then grabbed her bag and put it on his lap. He wanted to study the papers again, but knew Jo wanted him to have a nice time at the park without thinking about the investigation. He looked through the bag, but only found some clothes, school books and a notebook he'd never seen before. He dropped the bag onto the floor and flicked through the notebook. It was Jo's diary. He read the entry from the night of the murder. It was short and explained everything they'd done. He put the book back into the bag when he saw that Jo was coming back over. He smiled, thinking about the diary PJ kept in their room. PJ had always kept a diary, and only Gabe knew about it. PJ knew it wasn't cool for guys to keep diaries, or so he said, but he kept one anyway. Jo sat down next to Gabe, but he didn't notice since he was thinking about the diary. "What you thinking about, then?" she asked.

"PJ's diary," Gabe replied simply. Both of them then shared a grin. Gabe knew PJ wrote about everything in his diary, so that would mean secrets and people he didn't like, maybe even some clues leading to their answer. Gabe grabbed Jo's bag and tossed it to her. She caught it then they ran back to the Duncan house. Gabe was going to knock on the door when he remembered that everyone would be out, so the house would be empty. He grabbed the spare key out of the flower pot and flung open the door. He ran up the stairs, Jo following close behind. He threw open the door to his and PJ's room. Gabe opened the middle drawer on a chest of drawers and grabbed the plain black notebook that was in the back left corner. He flicked through the most recent entries, until he came across one that could possibly change everything...


	3. Surprises

**Author's Note - This took me so long to write, sorry. And it's ultra short. I just had some trouble coming up with ideas to make it any longer, but I wanted to update as soon as possible, which happens to be now, so hope you enjoy! And this is finally off hiatus. [;**

* * *

><p><em><strong>G<strong>__abe __**D**__uncan_

"A boy in my class threatened to kill me with a fork today. He is called..." I read aloud. The rest of the passage was not finished, but at the top of the page it stated the day PJ was killed. "He must have gone outside before he finished," I concluded. Jo nodded, agreeing with my answer. I could hear someone talking while walking up the stairs. "My parents are back!" I whispered worriedly. Jo pushed me into the wardrobe then got in herself. She closed the door quietly. I could hear my mum outside talking to someone - a police officer I assumed. I noticed I still had the diary in my hand, so I put it into the back corner of the wardrobe. I could hear the door open. I needed to sneeze, but fear of being found allowed me to hold it.

My mum and the police officer were talking about me. My mum was trying to explain that I was at Jo's house the whole time, but the police officer would have none of it. I was their main suspect, and unless Mum could prove that I was definitely at Jo's house then I would remain the main suspect. I could hear their talking getting quieter, and the noise of their footsteps as they went down the stairs. Jo nodded that it was safe to come out, so I kicked the door open lightly with my foot then got out. My head was pounding from where Jo had pushed me into the wardrobe. I grabbed the diary from the back then closed the door quietly. "Window," Jo whispered.

Since I had snuck out many times before, I had a rope ladder handy. I tightened it against the desk, the threw it out of the window. Luckily the window was facing the side of the house where no one ever went, and there wasn't a window below. I jumped up onto the window ledge then swung my legs over. I twisted myself round awkwardly then dropped the diary onto the soft grass below. It didn't make a sound. I climbed down the ladder slowly. Jo climbed down after me. Then, using a tree branch, I unhooked the ladder from the desk and dropped it onto the floor. I stuffed it into Jo's backpack, then we ran.

When we finally got to Jo's house I was out of breath. I was so sure that Mum was going to catch us, but turns out she didn't. I high-fived Jo, then she opened her front door and went inside, me following her in. Once we got up to Jo's room we both started laughing. We had a close getaway.

After we had finally stopped laughing, I opened up PJ's diary to the first of April, a month before his death. Jo and I read through the whole of the diary from that day on, but there were no other clues. I sighed. I thought we had cracked it, but I guess not. I looked over the last diary entry again, and realised that the page after it had been torn out - the page with the one clue we needed. I assumed that his murderer found the diary and tore the page out so no one would find out that it was him. Me and Jo looked at each other. I knew she was thinking the same thing as me - we needed to ask Teddy for help.


	4. Sneaking Around

**Author's Note - Unfortunately, this isn't as long as I had hoped, but I wanted to leave it with a cliffhanger, and if I continued on then the cliffhanger wouldn't be as good so... [[;**

* * *

><p><em><strong>G<strong>__abe __**D**__uncan_

I shook my head, frustrated. Teddy had finally agreed to meet me and Jo in the woods so Mum and Dad wouldn't find out. It was inconvenient, but it was the best we could get. I flicked through the diary again. There was nothing we could do to figure out what had happened. This was our third meeting, and we had read through PJ's diary twice already. The key was missing. None of us had any idea where to find the missing page, or figure out what it had said, so we were stuck. We couldn't go to the police - it was too risky.

"Look, we have a few clues," I started. "We know he was killed with a knife - from our house, which means that PJ either had the knife with him when he went outside; which I find unlikely. Or the killer, whoever he or she was, snuck into the house to get the knife. I say Teddy, you check the garage locks, see if any are damaged. Jo, you and I are going to steal the security tape from Mrs. Dabney's house. Because she is so paranoid about people breaking into her house, she has cameras installed in her house. One of them points out of a window, and you can just about make out the front of our house. That's our best guess." Jo and Teddy nodded. Jo grabbed her backpack and slung it over her shoulder, then we set off for Mrs. Dabney's house.

I knew we should have stolen the tape before, but it was awful quality, so would probably not actually make a difference to our own secret investigation. Jo pointed to something in the distance. I looked, but couldn't make anything out. I assumed that it was someone who was walking around in the woods, which I found odd at midnight, but it wasn't someone, but a sheet of paper.

We ran over and I picked up the paper. It was the same paper used in PJ's diary, which had a slight yellow tint to it from where PJ had dropped it many times in all sorts of disgusting substances. I flipped the paper over. The paper had been dropped in mud, so the writing was unreadable, but luckily there was another clue. Someone had written a code on the back of the paper. Jo put the code into a search engine then we waited. It turned out to have been the code we use to get into our garage. That meant that Teddy wouldn't find any clues on the garage lock, but we couldn't risk ringing her to tell her because it might wake our parents up and they would get suspiscious. Teddy had snuck out.

Jo sighed. "We know that this person must have at least got into your house before to find out the code, or they are family or a friend who has been in your house. It couldn't have been you, and it definitely wasn't me," she said. I raised my eyebrows. Jo was always the agressive one. She smacked me on the arm then continued, "It wouldn't have been any of your family anyway, none of you need the garage code; you all have a door key to get in. PJ wouldn't have done it himself. He had fallen forwards with the knife in his back. He wouldn't have been able to reach. Emmett? Spencer? Ivy? Anyone else?" Jo asked. I shook my head.

"If it was any of my family, then they might have just down this to create a wild goose chase, but I honestly don't think it's any of them. They're all taking it too hard, and none of them are good actors." Jo laughed. I smiled, then continued, "Emmett's been locked in his room for days only coming out to use the bathroom to to get something to eat. PJ was his best friend; one of his only friends, in fact. He's taking it hard," I explained. Jo nodded. "Ivy wouldn't do that to Teddy. PJ and Teddy may have had their fights, but they were still brother and sister. That just leaves Spencer." We both looked at each other. "Tape first, then spying on Spencer second," I said.

_**J**__o __**K**__eener_

We raced to Mrs. Dabney's house. She wasn't very smart with keeping the tapes locked away, so it took me two minutes to sneak through the cat flap, grab a handful of tapes, pass them to Gabe then sneak out. They were all video tapes, so we would need to borrow a video player, since I only had a DVD player back at my house.

We watched all of the tapes, but none of them showed anything interesting outside the Duncan's house. One was hilarious because it showed me beating Gabe up... repeatedly, which he didn't find so funny. The one labelled with the date of PJ's death was fuzzy and half of it was missing. We guessed that it was because the tape was still recording. Unfortunately, we would have to wait until Mrs. Dabney moved onto another tape before we could steal that one, and return the ones we had before she noticed.

Teddy was meeting us at my house during the day, telling her parents that she was going to Ivy's and hoping Ivy wouldn't say anything, and also sneaking out at night to meet us in the woods. Gabe's rope ladder was extremely helpful for sneaking out, so we lent it to Teddy. We followed this pattern for three weeks, but found no more evidence or clues. Until the night we met up with Emmett and Ivy...


End file.
